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By Steve Wildsmith

stevew@thedailytimes.com

Shirt untucked, eyes bulging, rants so intense they seem to verge on dispersing spittle into the front rows — comedian James Gregory can, to the uninitiated, come across like a crazy man.

To the conservative-minded Gregory, however, the insanity isn't coming from the stage — it's coming from the heart and soul of this country, and he's just telling it like it is.

“We have lost our minds,” Gregory declared in a recent phone interview with The Daily Times. “I used to be a news junkie, but I just can't watch it anymore. It makes my blood pressure go up.”

Case in point — the discussion of childhood obesity during one of the 2008 presidential debates. That politicians took the time to discuss the subject ... that they entertained the debate with sincerity and thoughtfulness ... well, it's unfathomable to Gregory. It gets him fired up, and while his wicked wit makes mockery of the deliciously funny topic, there's also an underlying message that's deadly serious — such a topic under consideration by both men, one of whom would go on to become the leader of the free world, is insane.

“I can't believe that we have sunk so low as a nation, as people, as parents, that childhood obesity is actually discussed during a presidential campaign,” said Gregory, who performs tonight (June 18) at The Capitol Theatre in downtown Maryville. “When that soccer mom asked during that debate, ‘What can you do about this epidemic?,' they should have said this: ‘Look, lady, if I'm elected, I will be the president of the United States. The leader of the free world ... the commander-in-chief. In case you haven't watched the news, we are at war. Extreme fundamental Muslims have vowed to kill us. They have stated openly that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth, and have said that someday, they want to detonate a nuclear bomb on American soil.

“'I don't give a rat's ass about your fat kids! You control the purse strings, you buy the groceries, and you want to ask me about what to do because they're fat? Sit down, lady! Shut up! How did you get in here?' Back in 1980 or ‘84 or ‘88, they didn't discuss this kind of (stuff)! It would have been stupid! But the politicians love it, because if they can convince us we need them to solve every little problem, it's to their advantage.

“It boggles my mind,” he added. “I can't believe a United States (politician) is actually going to publicly discuss fat kids.”

It's easy to see where Gregory gets his opinions — from the Southern, small-town upbringing he grew up in and still champions in his act. He grew up in Lithonia, Ga., was working 37 hours a week in a local grocery at the age of 11 and started out in life as a salesman. In 1982, friends convinced him to do an open mic night at an Atlanta comedy club, and he had the house in stitches. He was 35.

Since then, he's made a name for himself doing what he refers to as “front porch humor” — folksy homilies and anecdotes familiar to every man and woman in rural America. He tours endlessly and is a frequent guest on morning radio shows across the country such as John Boy and Billy and Bob and Tom. Such a routine might seem familiar to fans of Southern comedians like Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall, and it should — but Gregory was doing the same down-home, no-cursing routine long before “You might be a redneck” entered the American lexicon.

And he's still doing it. Most of his material comes from his every day life — the things he observes and the connections he makes between the way things are and the way they used to be. And the way things are, he points out, is messed up.

“This train has been coming down the track for a lot of years,” he said. “All of this didn't start 18 months ago when we elected Obama. There's a lot of blame for the past four decades — all on the politicians, and it don't matter which party. It's to their advantage that the American people stay uninformed and as stupid as we are. The more we know, the more trouble they're in. They use the word reform for a lot of things — and it galls me how people talk about how we need immigration reform. The U.S. has always had the most liberal, the most gracious and the most generous immigration policy than any country in the world. It's easier to become a citizen of the U.S. than it is to become a citizen of any other country, including Canada and Mexico — our neighbors.

“If there is a message, it's this — we live in the greatest country on earth, and since Obama's been elected, he's been on a never-ending apology tour. We don't need to apologize to anybody. You go to your archives and try to find me a story where any citizen, at any time, risks his life on a daily basis trying to get to Italy, trying to get to Spain, trying to get to Mexico. As bad as some people want to think this country is, it's where everybody wants to be, because if you take the poorest person here and transfer him to two-thirds of any other country in the world, he'd be the richest person there.”

Don't mistake Gregory's conservative humor as something split down party lines, however. He has equal criticism for both parties, because to Gregory, there should be only one factor determining a politician's stripes — good, old-fashioned common sense.

“I told people before — we don't really have Republicans anymore,” he said. “The Democrats have become Socialists, and the Republicans have become Democrats. I don't know why the Democrats hated Bush 43 so much. Except on military issues, a couple of decades ago they would have loved him to death. Under him, spending got out of control, we had these LBJ ‘Great Society' programs, like No Child Left Behind.”

So what can be done? The solution is simple, he said. All it takes is some discipline, some rigorous application and a commitment on the part of adults in this country:

“If it don't start in the home, it won't start anywhere.”